Hi yall,
I'm new to cloth diapering and I'm currently building my stash before the wee one comes.
I have found that used newborn stashes are very similarly priced as new diapers because they are in fact hardly used. Well, if they are going to hardly get used, why invest in a stash?
Will i save money to get cloth diapers over using disposables for the first month or so?
What has your experience been? How long did you use newborn sized CD?
Thanks!

Hi yall,
I'm new to cloth diapering and I'm currently building my stash before the wee one comes.
I have found that used newborn stashes are very similarly priced as new diapers because they are in fact hardly used. Well, if they are going to hardly get used, why invest in a stash?
Will i save money to get cloth diapers over using disposables for the first month or so?
What has your experience been? How long did you use newborn sized CD?
Thanks!

I didn't use a newborn stash as my kids come out big and grow fast. I think the cost effectiveness of it depends on your baby's size at birth and if you plan on having more kids. But they sure are cute.

It depends on if you have big babies or small babies. If you are going to have a baby 8.5lb or more I would not bother with newborns, as most one-size diapers fit around 10lb. If you want to use cloth from day one, a NB stash is awesome. If you are worried about being too tired/overwhelmed/in pain/ext and probably won't worry about cloth till a month or so old, just go with sposies. A great middle-of-the-road idea is to buy a stash of 2-size diapers (Thirsties Duo is what I used) They fit newborn to 7-ish months.

My girl was 7.7 and I love my newborn diapers because the fit beautifully and fit for about 3 months. If a miracle happens and we have another baby, I would totally buy a NB stash again! I bought all second hand NB diapers, and sold them for $10 less than I paid.

When you factor in the cost upfront, resale value and how much you'd spend on disposables, cloth is usually cheaper in the long run. (Not for everyone though...)

We didn't buy newborn specific diapers with our first baby and supplemented with sposies until his one size diapers fit. He never lost an ounce though, and was up from 8.3 to 10.5 at a week old... so we didn't have to wait long.

Next time, I'll have a full newborn stash, because I hate disposables now.

I feel like I didn't explain that as best as I could have for someone new to cloth.

There are certain newborn diapers that are very popular and have a very very high resale value. If you bought a stash of them and resold them when your baby outgrew them, you'd get about 80% of your money back. So if you put out $300 and made roughly $240 back, you paid only $60 to use super cute cloth on your baby. Helping the environment and saving your baby from exposure to the chemicals and toxins in disposables. It's a win - win! It's really about the start up cost, and if you can afford/want to shell out that much money for now.

They have good resale value so you'll make a lot of your money back. The best part (for me) was the transition into cloth. I did sposies with my first (had no clue about the modern cd) and was nervous about using cloth with my second. Having them at the newborn stage allowed me to jump right in and not get "comfortable" with sposies. I got into a routine from the very beginning and loved it!

I would say it's worth investing in, if not solely because you CAN resell it for 75% of what you paid for it, more if your baby is big and if barely sees any use. I sold my first newborn stash to expand my stash after he was into OS diapers and have never regretted it. For my newbie I diversified a little and bought a totally different stash, but this one I intend to keep to use with future kids. And if we decide there are no future kids, it'll get sold or passed on to family or friends.
For me the biggest bonus of using cloth no matter what size is the resale value. There is always a market because someone is always on a budget or looking for a good deal!

I don't think you can really go wrong with a newborn stash of preemie prefolds and PUL. Especially if you buy the prefolds super cheap (I got mine at Cotton Babies for $1 a piece). For this baby I got 24 preemie prefolds and 5 Tiny Tush xs seconds. I ended up buying a couple of Bummis in case (super unlikely) this one is tiny and they were super cheap so if I don't use them I'm not going to sweat it. But, the whole stash cost me around $75. Even if it's a bigger baby (like the first two) the covers will get used for at least one month and the prefolds will be used as doublers for the rest of the time we CD.

Ladybug was in size 1 sposies for about 6 weeks. Only Pampers Swaddlers worked for her to contain explosions and keep rashes semi at bay. We went through at least two boxes during that time period and spent around $100 on sposies (most of the ones that were given to us were brands that did not work, don't even get me started on the cheapie store brands). There won't be any gifted diapers this time so we can expect to spend at least that much on sposies during the newbie period. I'd rather just invest in the cloth especially since I know the covers will last through a couple children given how little they'll be used.

With Itsy we went with wool and fitteds and that was much more expensive. I ended up just giving the fitteds away so there was no resale value either

I guess it depends on why you use cloth. I use them for health and environmental reasons and because they work better so of course it make sense to me to have them in cloth from birth. That said it made the most sense financially too. Our oldest was in sposies at first and we spent around $300 for the first 3 months of his life on disposables diapers. So when pregnant with my 2nd I knew as long as we spent under that amount it would be benificial. I prefer prefolds and flats so not only were they used from birth but some of those were used actually all the way to PLing and then again on our 3rd child. So for a few hundred dollars we've already gotten 3+ years of use out of them.